Reflections and Breaking Resistance - Purity 799

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of what I call a River Torrens reflection comes to us from Dave Bond Photography, as Dave made the best of the requirement to commute to work earlier than necessary on Saturdays due to the local train schedule by taking walks with his camera and capturing scenes like this along the way. Dave testifies that the time he gets to spend doing something he loves before work on Saturday morning usually sets him up for a very good day. While I often say it's not where you start but where you finish that matters, I have to agree with Dave's sentiments that doing something you love to start the day can certainly help set us up to have a very good day. For me, my mornings are spent with spiritual practices of gratitude, prayer, and meditation, and the study of God's Word. Word. By reminding myself of who I am in Christ, who God is, and all that he has done in my life, I start the day humbled and grateful and use the time to ask the Lord to help guide me through the day. But I also use several days of the week to exercise my body as part— body as my mind— as well as my mind and spirit. Although our Christian walk of faith is spirit— is a spiritual endeavor, there are plenty of verses in Scripture that tell us that our bodies are important too. Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, so we should be good stewards with what the Lord has provided us with. But Scripture also indicates that part of our walk of faith involves crucifying the flesh, as we seek to walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh. While the world pushes comfort foods to provide self-care, Christ said that the Holy Spirit would be our comforter. While we need food to live, we shouldn't necessarily live for food. When our relationship with food is out of balance, our bodies show it with digestive issues and aches and pains that result from weight gain. So part of our spiritual walk should include a reflection of how we are treating God's temple, and possibly the decision to make changes in how we, uh, how and what we eat, as well as taking time to exercise our bodies to make them healthy and strong enough to diligently pursue what the Lord would have us do. Uh, exercise enthusiasts will tell you about the benefits of exercise, and I am here to encourage you that the care of our bodies isn't just a self-centered practice of vanity, but can be a rich part of our daily spiritual practice of walking in the Spirit. I have struggled with overeating and seeking emotional comfort from food all my life, and recently realized that even in the midst of my regular practice, uh, exercise practice, I had turned a blind eye to my eating habits and the weight gain that resulted. But my body was telling me all along that things weren't good, as my back would periodically ache. But I resisted those messages and persisted with my cheat days and what I thought were only occasional overindulgences. But the truth is, when you give up on your discipline over what you eat even just a little bit, it's like you let the dam break and all kinds of food comes flooding in. Comedian Jim Brewer once did a routine about drinking and how drinking was like a party in your stomach and how you shouldn't mix different alcoholic beverages because it would make you sick. His routine documents how you— and I'm sharing a link to that routine, it's somewhat amusing— his routine documents how Once you let some things into your life, other things just pour on in. In his routine, Brewer talks about how after beer is let into the party in our stomachs, other types of alcoholic beverages sneak into the party with disastrous results, leading the stomach to throw everybody out and up. Uh, thankfully, even though I can relate to Brewer's routine, the Lord helped me to be set free from those problems forever. The analogy of compromising our better judgment still stands. I have to— I've seen how it goes that way for food. When you decide to indulge in sweets or other foods that go against your health goals, your tendency to compromise again and again increases. And what may begin as a one-time indulgence once a week turns into regular cheats that compound over time and result in the pains of weight gain. In the process, you know it's happening, but you just ignore it and you resist doing what you know you have to do. You have to stop and go back to the habits that gave you success, but you resist it and keep it a secret and even may resort to secretly eating in front of— you know, resort to secretly eating rather than in front of others to hide your compromise. At least I did. But if you persist in your compromise, the pain will increase until it's impossible to ignore anymore. I heard it said somewhere that we only change when we are uncomfortable, and it was only after being uncomfortable for quite some time that I decided to go back to the drawing board and try to get my temple back to where I had it. I wish I had done it sooner, but I'm glad that I decided to confess it and be intentional about making the month of August a month where I get closer to where I— closer to where I was to get healthier. I have learned that we are only as sick as our secrets, and if we are hiding our behaviors from others, we need to rat ourselves out to break the resistance to change that seems so hard. When, when with one day in, I can say I'm on the right track. My eating yesterday was within the parameters of my plan, and I exercised yesterday, and I did again today, and I feel good about it. And my reflections of what I need to change, I have also resolved to stay out of enemy territory. Before August, I had a tendency to throw my convictions to the wind when I found myself at parties or went to certain places, saying When in Rome. But I was reminded of the importance of places for people in recovery. Former alcoholics should avoid the places where they used to drink. Similarly, I should avoid the places where I would eat the things I shouldn't. So I, so I have resolved to stay away from Stewart's. The only thing I get at Stewart's for the most part is their ice cream, and when I do, I eat the whole half gallon. So, I resolve that Stewart's is no man's land. And I am also recognizing my personal responsibility to be true to my health goals, regardless of the places I go and the company I keep. So, I will endeavor to try to be self-aware and not declare that I am in the capital of Italy and let my convictions roam. The good news is that I am not alone. I have a wife who supports me in this walk, but I also have the Holy Spirit to lead me in this— lead me in the spirit and help me. And he has helped me to overcome this struggle in the past. So as we go into the second day of this new month, let's keep walking and talking with God. Let's reflect on the way life used to be and all the love that the world, the flesh, and devil took from me, and decide that we are going to stop being uncomfortable with the compromises of in our lives that cause us pain, and instead decide to lean on the Lord for his strength and guidance to lead us in the way we should go. Hey, Rome wasn't built in a day, and the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So put your best foot forward, trust in the Lord, and start walking towards the abundant life of freedom and victory that he has for you. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is Revelation 3:8, and it says, "I know all the things you do, and I have opened a door for you that no one can close. You have little strength, yet you obeyed my word and did not deny me." Today's verse comes from the Lord's message to the church in Philadelphia and speaks of how the Lord gives us opportunities that no one can take away and the importance of being true to our relationship with God with obedience. In that letter in the Book of Revelation, the church at Philadelphia was facing challenges to their faith, but the Lord acknowledged their heart for Him and encouraged them to persevere in their faith and their obedience to His ways with the assurance that if they held on to what they, to what they had they would be protected and have a place in his kingdom forever. There we go. Sorry. So although we aren't necessarily from Philadelphia, we can draw the general principle that God has opened a door for us that no one can close, and that if we should use our little strength to faithfully obey the Lord's will for our lives with the assurance of his divine favor and protection and our eternal place with him. Just as Philadelphia, so it is with us. As always, I enjoy— well, I enjoy— I do enjoy doing the blog, but I invite people to go to mtforchrist.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from Clinton Arnold's Powers of Darkness, and today's topic is Christ Alone is Supreme. And, um, so yeah, if you want to check out that excerpt from Clinton Arnold's book, go to mtforchrist.org and you'll see it at the end of today's blog post. So yeah, Christ Alone is Supreme, and you know, the reflections and the photo and I just thought of that song, you know, Reflections by the Supremes. So it's sort of funny, you know, reflections of the way life used to be, reflections of the love you took from me. And, you know, it's an awesome song, but it's all about heartbreak and how somebody, uh, and it doesn't end on a good note. And so I was going to share it, but I'm like, no, I don't think I'll share that. It's sort of a bummer, um, because no matter what love someone might have taken from you and how life used to be. When we're in Christ, it's much better than what the love some person could give you. And if they broke your heart, maybe it wasn't meant to be, and the Lord is calling you to someone else or something else, and it's certainly calling you to Jesus Christ. So, so we keep walking and talking with God, and we don't worry about the heartache. Of the days past. Our path on the Christian path of discipleship is to go forward. And when we make mistakes or go off the path to the right or the left, um, you know, we pick ourselves up and we, um, we start walking and talking with God to keep going the way we should go. And we lean on his strength to overcome. And that's it, you know. That's what I have to do, uh, on a continuous basis with this food thing. And, um, you know, I, I honestly believe that we can overcome whatever challenges, uh, that's before us. But the way we have— we do that is with the Lord's presence in our life and by following and leaning on him. Um, I've overcome addictions in the past, and when I say, you know, former life, that's, that's it. That's not me anymore. I won't be the one standing up at an an AA meeting saying I'm an alcoholic because it's just not the case anymore. You know, I guess you could say I had struggles with alcohol, drugs, and sexual immorality, but I don't have any anymore, and I'm not going to admit to something I don't have anymore. You know, Christ was tempted in every way, so that means he was tempted to, you know, do all kinds of things, I'm sure. To drink, to overindulge in drink, to, uh, you know, have sex, all those things. But Christ didn't confess that he had struggles. He confessed he was the Son of God, and he talked about what the Father would have us do. So that's what I do. I'm not in denial. I've just— I'd rather talk about the good things that the Lord has for us. If you want to hear some horror stories from my life and problems, I'd rather not share them, but if it would help you to change to give up those things and to move towards the Lord, I would share them. But, you know, and I try to be transparent in the fact that, you know, I'm not a perfect person and that we mess up. We're only human and we'll make mistakes. But the good thing is we're forgiven and we've been given power to say no. So if we exercise that power, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. So thus we should continue in the walk and fight the good fight of faith and answer the upward call that God has on our lives. That's what we do here, uh, to encourage that. And we do that by sharing our discipleship classes that we did in 2021. They're available on the podcast and the YouTube channel for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. They're all based on the word of God and the work of Dr. Neil Anderson. Freedom in Christ Ministries. So if you want to check those out, they're available. And we obviously encourage the, the reading, study, and application of the Word of God. And that's why we share a Bible study once a week. It's a topical study where we talk about, you know, how to live this life and different topics that relate to our faith and, you know, what the Bible has to say about it. What the Lord would have us do. So if you want to check that out, it's called Bible Study with the Sincaidis, and that's available on the podcast and the YouTube channel as well. Well, um, it's Tuesday and it's back to the drawing board, uh, in terms of my health goals and, uh, you know, back to, back to work. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you for everyone listening. Lord, we pray for you to come along be beside them in their walk of faith, um, and, uh, you know, come alongside them in their prayer requests as well, Lord, as we've been praying for things, and so we're praying for them too. Um, Lord, we just pray for you to go before us today, open our eyes to all the good that you've done for us, who we are in Christ, and what you would have us do today. Um, lead us into the good things you want us to do. Help us to be the best person we can be. To represent you here on the earth. Lord, we just need you every day to guide us and strengthen us and to, to know what we should do. So we ask for you to lead us into all truth and those good things you prepared before, uh, for us to do. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you. We pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.